Youngsters donned fancy dress – many of them characters from the film Frozen – while staff all wore the same costume , with Where’s Wally’s red striped jumpers and big round glasses.

Through the day staff members took it in turns to hide and challenged the children to – find Wally!

Centre manager Angie Baggley said: “The staff came up with the very cunning plan to all dress up the same.

“But we didn’t give any clues to the parents about what we were going to do. During the day we posted pictures on our Facebook page and asked parents to guess which member of staff it was and where they were hiding.

“We involved the children and it was like one big game of hide and seek. There was a lot of fun and learning going on.”

At Hillside Primary School in Newsome, The Cat in The Hat rubbed shoulders with Pippa Longstocking as all the children contributed to a continuous story.

It began in the Foundation Stage class and finished in Year 6, with the story read out in Assembly.

The event was organised by Jo Smith, Hillside’s literacy co-ordinator.

At Crow Lane Primary School in Milnsbridge, children took to the playground with all manner of wheeled toys ranging from bikes and scooters to dolls prams.

They were sponsored to “Roll for reading”, with laps around the playground raising money to buy new books for the classrooms.

Eslewhere, scores of youngsters got dressed up and made their way to schools for events with a book theme.

It was the 18th year of the event which now stretches across the world and involves youngsters in dozens of countries dressing up as their favourite book characters.